M. Tullius Cicero, For Marcellus
C. D. Yonge, Ed.

But now I come to those severe complaints, and to those most terrible suspicions that you have given utterance to; of dangers which should be guarded against not more by you yourself than by all the citizens and most especially by us who have been preserved by you. And although I trust that the suspicion is an ungrounded one, still I will not speak so as to make light of it. For caution for you is caution for ourselves. So that, if we must err on one side or the other, I would rather appear too fearful, than not sufficiently prudent. But still, who is there so frantic? Any one of your own friends? And yet who are more your friends than those to whom you have restored safety which they did not venture to hope for? Any one of that number who were with you? It is not credible that any man should be so insane as not to prefer the life of that man who was his general when he obtained the greatest advantages of all sorts, to his own. But if your friends have no thoughts of wickedness, need you take precautions lest your enemies may be entertaining such? Who are they? For all those men who were your enemies have either already lost their lives through their obstinacy, or else have preserved them through your mercy; so that either none of your enemies survive, or those who do survive are your most devoted friends.